Borat and the GOP

Niall Ferguson seems to like Borat. Partially because he's funny, and in part because he embarrasses some of the Southern GOP types. Though I think his conclusion on this may be a bit off the mark.

IN ADDITION TO being a brilliant satirist, Sacha Baron Cohen was once a rather good historian. In fact, he is by far my most successful former student. I can still remember how well he used to play the part of a studious Cambridge undergraduate, taking me in completely. With the character of Borat, however, he has gone one better. He has taken in America.

For the amazing thing about his new film is how brutally it ridicules the United States. Borat's victims are all hapless Americans, mugged by Oxbridge irony. The rodeo crowd who howl down his rendition of a spoof Kazakh national anthem, sung to the tune of "The Star Spangled Banner"; the Southern architect and preacher who invite him to dinner only to have him vilify their wives; the Pentecostal worshippers whom he mocks by pretending to shake and speak in tongues; the politically incorrect frat boys who give him a lift in their van and, in their cups, expose their own sad misogyny — all of them trustingly welcomed a man whom they took to be a genuine Central Asian journalist, and all of them ended up abjectly humiliated. And yet American audiences roar with laughter. The film is a hit, topping the box office again this weekend and generating close to $68 million so far.

The explanation is, of course, that nearly all Borat's victims are Republicans. God-fearing, often Southern and just a little unused to tricky foreigners, such people were supposed to be the Republican Party's core support. Suddenly the rest of the nation is laughing at them — and outvoting them. It's as if blue America is in on the joke being played on red America by Sacha. And that's why the popularity of his movie — which I saw with my family in San Francisco on the eve of the election — was a harbinger of the drubbing red-state America was going to suffer at the polls.

It should be apparent to most of the world that there are those that want to stand in front of a camera at any cost, and there are those such as myself who consider shooting anyone carrying a video camera. Borat did indeed make fools of a bunch of GOPers who stood right up and volunteered to be made an ass of. They even showed good manners by not knocking Sacha on his ass when he insulted the preachers wife. No doubt this type of event will become the quintessential definition of the southern conservative rubes being taken down by the sophisticated Oxfordian. Good for Sacha. He's making a lot of money by embarrassing fools who chose to grasp at that tiny bit of fame rather than listen to what the cretin was actually saying.

And, do you think that the movie actually contained any part that showed the camera flies resisting Borat's charm? Or even holding their own? Not likely. Especially since Sacha likely targeted those that obviously were unarmed.

Ferguson finally gets on with making a relevant point beyond that you can make idiots look stupid.

Whatever anyone says today about the joys of bipartisanship, and even if the Democrats resist the temptation to launch muck-raking congressional inquiries, the result is bound to be more, not less, political polarization. President Bush will never be able to "reach out" to a House speaker like Nancy Pelosi, least of all over Iraq. He'd rather see his father's realist pals, James A. Baker III and Robert Gates, reach out to Iran and Syria.

Yet for precisely these reasons, the Democrats could quite quickly alienate the voters they managed to win over last week — or rather the voters the Republicans managed to drive away. And two years of deadlock between an unpopular president and an unreconstructed Democratic Party establishment could provide the perfect backdrop for John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008. After all, McCain has repeatedly criticized the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war without doing anything on domestic politics that a Blue Dog would so much as growl at.

The French have an expression for it: reculer pour mieux sauter (take a step back so you can take a big leap forward). If it turns out that Republicans merely took a step back in '06, the better to jump ahead in '08, then the joke will be on Borat.

I'm doubtful that there will be any dramatic changes in 2008. There may be a little legislative realignment, but after Bush there will most probably be a Dem in the White House. Who it will be I haven't any idea. I'm hoping not Hillary. I'm doubtful that the Repugs will have the ability to draw back the moderates, and with Bush in office, the BDS will continue to push the perspective away from reality for those who can't be bothered to actually look at an issue with honesty.

Now if only we could stop hearing about who is running for president in 2008 for at least 6 months I'd be relieved.